Crying Uncle
by wrldpossibility
Summary: Futuristic, fluff, proposal fic. I have no excuses for my behavior. ;


Crying Uncle

The first time he asks, they're in bed, rolling around in the sheets like teenagers, so how's she supposed to know to take him seriously? She laughs it off, and changes the subject with a well placed move to the groin. Of course, it gnaws at her later—why'd he say it? Did he mean it?—but she chalks it up to a moment of (misguided) passion.

The next time he asks, she's just polishing off the crème brulee of her five diamond meal, and their waiter is sliding an obscene bill across the table to Castle. He hands over his Visa card without opening the leather-bound folder, but doesn't ask the man to drag Aureole's celebrity chef from the kitchen to shoot the breeze as he usually does. Instead, he looks at her steadily until she quits picking at the last of the burnt sugar rimming her dessert dish and is forced to entertain the idea that he might be speaking in earnest.

The third time he asks, he's made what he calls his world-famous calzones, which they're eating on a blanket laid out before the fireplace in his loft. He has a ring and everything, a very Richard Castle-esque number that catches the light of the licking flames and turns ten shades of brilliant. She swallows hard, because what must that thing have cost? He lets her off the hook good naturedly enough, though she notes a tiny twitch near his right eye as he turns away to store the leftovers and uncork the champagne he'd kept chilling in the wine cooler. (Might as well not let it go to waste.)

She follows him into the kitchen, because she's not made of stone. "Why?" she asks him. "And why spring it on me everywhere we go?"

He studies the bubbles rising in the champagne flutes. "Remember when Ryan was debating popping the question to Jenny? You said-iyou/i-that all my flashy, over-the-top ideas were overrated. That simple is best. You may note that I've started with simple: nice meals-he holds up the bottle in his hand-good booze." His eyes narrow as he regards her. "But I'm hereby upping the ante. _This_ makes you squirm? Mark my words, Beckett, the longer you wait, the worse it's going to be." He hands her a glass, takes his own, and clinks them together. "I don't run out of ridiculous ideas easily."

She stands in the middle of his kitchen in shock. "I'm sorry, are you _threatening_ me with increasingly frequent proposals?"

"No," he smiles. "I'm threatening you with increasingly _ridiculous_ proposals." She's still considering the folly of underestimating his imagination when he adds, "But you can cry 'uncle' any time."

He's true to his word. The fourth time he asks, he's engaged (no pun intended) the help of the entire precinct, surprising her with a police escort through Central Park followed by a staged proposal front of Belvedere Castle. Her reaction isn't exactly what the department had been hoping for (Castle had promised them all drinks at the Haunt in celebration), but he saves face when a 211 comes in and half the crowd departs in the subsequent squawk of radios and wail of sirens. After everyone's left, she lets him know just how badly she wants to strangle him with her bare hands. "You know how to make this stop," he tells her.

The fifth time he asks, he drags her to a production at the Metropolitan, where he's arranged for the conductor to orchestrate the wedding march followed by a very public spotlight on their grand tier balcony. She gives him a look that makes him wince (and mumble his thanks that he'd decided against the JumboTron at Yankee Stadium), and finally, he cracks. "_Why not?_" he wails.

"You don't want to marry me," she informs him, and then she has to repeat herself over the swell of the bass section. "You just _think_ you do, because that's what you do."

He stares at her, then mouths, "Do what?" over the opening strains of Beethoven's Symphony #7.

"You marry women!" she retorts too loudly. "Habitually."

"Twice! That hardly makes me a serial husband!"

She lowers her voice. They're beginning to be shushed. "Twice too many, you always say."

The sixth time he asks, he includes Martha and her entire off-Broadway cast of Our Town (enough said), and the seventh involves a flash mob outside the Mid-Manhattan Library on West 40th dancing to Uptown Girl (which doesn't even make sense, when you think about it).

She's just threatened to put in for a transfer before there can be an eighth time when they're walking out of a three-story walk-up in Brooklyn chasing a lead with Esposito and Ryan. As they reach the sidewalk, Castle's in the throes of theory building: eyes wild, hands combing the air for emphasis, the whole nine yards. As far as she can tell, he's oblivious to the world as she turns to ask Espo a question. She steps off the curb just as a reckless cab driver cuts the corner, tires bouncing up on the sidewalk, and suddenly Castle's hand is curling around her shoulder, drawing her sharply back. By the time she's spun around to face him, Espo's sworn loudly in the direction of the driver and Castle's already back to business as usual, talking conspiracy as he makes his way to their unmarked, his arm guiding her along in his wake.

She stops him, right there in the street. His expression is a mix of curiosity and intellect and lingering passion for his subject matter, and she just looks at him. Really, really looks.

He'd take a bullet for her.

He'd give himself up for her.

He'd die for her, she absolutely knows it. He just saved her from death by taxi as though it were any other day on the job and-"Uncle."

He opens his mouth in a comical 'O', then closes it. "What? Did you just say—"

She offers an experimental smile. "Uncle."

His grin splits his face, and she grins back—no, laughs back— and then he grabs her and holds her and says something like, "Really?" and she says something like "Uh huh!" and Espo's behind them, saying something even stupider like, "What'd I miss?" Then he catches on and adds, "But hey, what about that flock of swans you—" and Ryan's saying, "Dude. Shut up."

They stand there in the gutter, their arms wrapped around each other, listening to horns honking at them and more cabbies yelling at them and Espo yelling back. And after a minute Castle digs into his breast pocket because of course he still has the ring and she lets him put it on her finger right then and there.

Maybe all of New York is watching, and maybe Espo and Ryan are laughing, but she's pretty sure she just proposed and she's _very_ sure it's for the last time.


End file.
